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Speaker 1: It's the first lawsuit of its kind and a new

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Speaker 1: strategy to fight for climate action at a time when

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Speaker 1: President Trump is working to undo former President Obama's climate regulations.

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Speaker 1: The twenty one plaints are between the ages of nine

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Speaker 1: and twenty one, and they claim that the federal government

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Speaker 1: has violated their constitutional right to a healthy climate system

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Speaker 1: by consistently engaging in activities that promote fossil fuel production

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Speaker 1: and greenhouse gas emissions. In November, a federal judge rule

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Speaker 1: the lawsuit could proceed to trial, but now the Trump

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Speaker 1: administration has filed a motion to overturn that ruling and

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Speaker 1: stop trial preparation until that motion can be heard. Our

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Speaker 1: guest is Chuck Warren. He is a partner at Cramer Levan,

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Speaker 1: neft Talis and Frankel and head of the environmental practice there.

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Speaker 1: Chuck described the constitutional claims that the plaintiffs are making

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Speaker 1: in the case. Yeah, this is a June This is

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Speaker 1: a really unique claim in this context. They're essentially saying

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Speaker 1: that the the government is violating the Fifth Amendment, which

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Speaker 1: says no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or

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Speaker 1: property without due process of law by engaging in the

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Speaker 1: kind of conduct that you just talked about where they're

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Speaker 1: not taking action to do something about greenhouse gases, which

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Speaker 1: you're having an important impact adverse impact on on the

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Speaker 1: on the planets here. And I it's really the first

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Speaker 1: time in a federal court that the court has addressed this,

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Speaker 1: and this judge in Oregon, federal judge found that would

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Speaker 1: not dismiss it and found that they could go forward

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Speaker 1: to trial, you know, on that constitutional uh claim and

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Speaker 1: also the claim that they have under what they call

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Speaker 1: the public trust doctrine, which is a doctrine that's a

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Speaker 1: common law doctrine. It's been around for many years, which

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Speaker 1: says it's the government's obligation to protect, protect, than preserve

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Speaker 1: assets owned collectively now in the future, and it's generally

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Speaker 1: been applied by state courts in the United States for

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Speaker 1: wildlife management and public access to beaches. This is the

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Speaker 1: first time anyone suggested that you should use the public

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Speaker 1: trust doctrine to protect the air in essence. And so

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Speaker 1: they have those two major claims. One is the constitutional

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Speaker 1: claim under the Fifth Amendment and the other is the

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Speaker 1: public trust doctrine. And I think if something like this

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Speaker 1: is upheld, it would really be a revolutionary way to

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Speaker 1: deal with something like climate change when there seems to

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Speaker 1: be the situation where you might not get much government

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Speaker 1: action from the federal government right now. Well, Chuck, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's both sort of that substantive issue, this sort of

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Speaker 1: revolutionary claims being made. There's also a lot of procedural

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Speaker 1: things going on as the government appeals the ruling that

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Speaker 1: the case can go forward. One of the things they're

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Speaker 1: wrangling over in front of the judges whether or not

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Speaker 1: discovery should take place. That is, should the government have

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Speaker 1: to preserve and then produce all of the documents that

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Speaker 1: might underlie the claim about how much it knew about

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Speaker 1: climate change, etcetera. The Trump administration seemed not to even

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Speaker 1: want to preserve a lot of the documents. Do they

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Speaker 1: have a chance of getting of getting the judge to

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Speaker 1: say that's okay? I would? You know, I would I

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Speaker 1: would think as far as preserving them, that the courts

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Speaker 1: would say, wait a minute, these needs. You can't really

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Speaker 1: do anything to destroy these things, and you have to

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Speaker 1: preserve them. Depending on how you know things are are

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Speaker 1: come out in the final ruling, but I would think

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Speaker 1: that they ought to be able to save the documents

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Speaker 1: and preserve them and then you're correct, and the Trump

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Speaker 1: administration is basically saying we want to appeal appeal at

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Speaker 1: which they are, but in the meantime, stop all proceedings.

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Speaker 1: And that goes to the I think what you're just

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Speaker 1: discussing where they would like to just say, Okay, we

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Speaker 1: don't want to have to do anything when they have

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Speaker 1: to preserve anything. And but I think it's unlikely that

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Speaker 1: the courts would just let them get away with saying

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Speaker 1: we don't have to preserve anything. It's an odd request.

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Speaker 1: But m chuck, what's the likelihood that this kind of

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Speaker 1: a brown, groundbreaking lawsuit could really succeed? Well, it's interesting

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Speaker 1: there was a similar federal lawsuit on where the where

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Speaker 1: they try to invoke the public trust doctrine and the

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Speaker 1: d C Circuit Court of Appeals basically said, no, this

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Speaker 1: is really under state common law and there's no we're

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Speaker 1: not going to we don't recognize a federal right to this.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that any court has confronted the Fifth

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Speaker 1: Amendment argument, which would be uh using in a very

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Speaker 1: novel way. This is would go on appeal since it's

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Speaker 1: from Oregon on the district court, who go on appeal

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Speaker 1: to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is probably

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Speaker 1: the best circuit court of appeals from the environmental standpoint

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Speaker 1: for the plaintiffs to have. I still think it's a

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Speaker 1: long shot in the end, but this is probably the

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Speaker 1: best court to have it in if you're going to succeed. Well,

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Speaker 1: we are going to be watching this lawsuit because it

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Speaker 1: really is interesting and if you look at the stories

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Speaker 1: of some of these kids, it it really is just

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Speaker 1: amazing how they're they're moving forward with this. Whatever side

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Speaker 1: you are on, Thanks so much, Chuck for being with

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Speaker 1: us as Oh wait, that's Charles Warren. He is a

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Speaker 1: partner at Kramer Levin, nef Talis and frankl and he's

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Speaker 1: head of the environmental practice there. Coming up, we're going

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Speaker 1: to be talking about two hundred and nine two professors

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Speaker 1: writing to the federal government. They're arguing that the executive

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Speaker 1: order by Donald Trump for the federal government to withhold

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Speaker 1: funding from sanctuary cities is unconstitutional. We'll talk about why